Play it My Way
by Marcus Galen Sands
Summary: You know Worm Choose Your Own Adventure? I chose to give it a go. Now I have to win or die, but if I have to play this game I intend to do so as I see fit.
1. Chapter 1

**The various fictional worlds, characters and elements that are written about in this fanfiction belong to their various creators, who I'm too lazy to list. This is purely a fan work and not intended to generate any sort of profit. I know that if it does a fair number of bloodthirsty lawyers are likely to make my life miserable. As always constructive criticism is welcome and flames will be ignored.**

**Well, here's my latest work. I confess that it's more the result of accumulated nervous energy, too many Worm CYOA fics and a truly monumental case of writer's block on my normal stories. I would like to stress that THIS IS NOT A FIC I'M SINKING TOO MUCH EFFORT INTO. It's simply something I wrote for fun and to break through my writer's block. I sadly don't expect it to be up to my usual standards, but I'm putting it up in the hopes that it will provide it's readers with some entertainment.**

**Truth be told I only have a half formed idea of where I'm going with this, some points are already set, but I welcome any suggestions.**

**On that note if anyone can clarify a few details on the Emperor of Mankind I would be very grateful. I know the general 40K lore, enough to enjoy the Warhammer fics I read, but I'm still a bit unclear as to just what the Emperor can do. I know that he's got supernatural leadership and ruling powers, enough that he was able to forge the titanic Empire of Man. I know that he has expertise in all the advanced tech of his empire. I also know that he's a psyker of vast power, enough that even the Chaos Gods don't want to tangle with him straight up.**

**My problem is that aside from his destruction of Horus and some of the feats he performed when reclaiming his sons there aren't too many examples of his other capabilities, at least none that I've found in my admittedly limited research.**

**Having seen what other psykers can do I'm guessing that telepathy, psychometry, telekinesis and televiewing are all available to him. I also know he can do the whole 'I will blast you to bit with my MIND' thing. But if anyone can provide me with some specifics I'd be grateful.**

**I do ask my readers to remember that I'll be keeping things on a slightly even keel though. I'm well aware that if the real Emperor found himself in the Wormverse that he could probably lobotomise Scion in short order, then take over Cauldron, burn it to the ground, salt said ground and then begin to churn out Space Marines. But I'm trying to avoid that, at least initially.**

**On a different note I hope that DerTodesbote doesn't mind me naming him as the artist of the fanart referred to in this fic. I greatly appreciate his work and hope it's okay with him.**

* * *

**Play it My Way: Chapter One**

I look at the screen before me and weigh my options. Alright, I've already got a couple of fics going and both of them aren't too bad if I do say so myself. I've also got one or two incomplete first chapters to a couple of others on the back burner that I only touch on when I'm feeling uninspired.

Like now.

Well, if all truth were to be told my current lack of inspiration for my main stories was driven by far too much time playing the Mass Effect trilogy while also reading some 40K books and listening to the entire Lost Fleet series on my iPod. The simple fact was that both of my main stories were mainly fantasy based, and for the last month I'd been overdosing on sci-fi instead. When you looked at it from that perspective it was hardly a surprise that I'd been having trouble getting into the groove once more.

So maybe trying something a little different would be in order. If nothing else then at least a change of pace might do me some good.

I've made a couple of comments online at other peoples' work, what I hoped had been useful constructive criticisms. Given that Worm CYOAs were popping up like mushrooms all over the place there had been plenty of them to read. Sure, most of them hadn't had a chance to get up too far off the ground yet, but they'd all been pretty fun to read so far.

As it turned out though someone had taken note of me, because when I sat down at my laptop today to check my emails I'd found this.

My address is known to a couple of other writers so that we could bounce ideas about, so it wasn't odd for me to get mail from people I didn't know. Whoever had sent this one had a sense of humour, because the sender was simply ROB. For a moment I consider that it might have a virus or malware, then decide to go ahead. My anti-virus software is pretty good after all, and so far I hadn't gotten any of the sort of hate mail that some authors had complained of.

A click and the email is open. The attached message is pretty short, but it is interesting.

_Hi,_

_Heard you were having some trouble with your writing and that you might be interested in doing some Worm stuff. Just click on the link below and I promise you that you'll have no trouble at all coming up with something._

_Worm Choose Your Own Adventure!_

Well, that brings me back to the present, should I, or shouldn't I?

Oh, what the hell, what was the worst that could happen?

A click, a short wait and my screen suddenly turns black. For a moment my heart leaps into my throat as I think such thoughts as 'virus', 'system corruption', and 'lost data'. Then I notice a small hourglass in the top right hand corner quickly filling up and my heart starts beating again.

The hourglass fills, turns over and I'm suddenly looking at a screen with big white letters at the top against a black background.

**Worm CYOA**

**Two beings spiral through the void, past stars, and worlds. They dance through realities, shifting through other times, other dimensions. Countless facets fuse, part, and shift as they journey. Approaching a world they shatter. Shards fall into millions of . . .**

This was an intro I was familiar with, it was the bit written at the top of the Worm Choose your own Adventure rules that I'd seen a lot on the Space Battles forum and on the Sufficient Velocity forum. Scrolling down I saw the same description of the rules and choices, but unlike in the text there were a number of parts you could click on to make choices.

Oh, I think I get it! Some bright spark has cooked up a computerized version of the Worm CYOA and made it into a . . . whatchama call 'em, an electronic muse? I'd read about them somewhere, basically it was a program where you put in your choices and then when you were done it gave you a whole bunch of suggestions and ideas. You'd pick one and then it would give you a whole bunch more, and so on and so on until it ran out of ideas to give. It can also play a bit like a game since if you make poor choices you end up getting a 'bad' ending.

Interesting.

Oh well, it's Saturday morning, I don't feel like reading, playing games or writing my normal stuff. I didn't have any plans, other than making a whole bunch of chicken fingers for supper, and I wasn't looking at any interruptions any time soon.

Let's give it a go.

Alright, first I've got to choose the nature of my entry. My choices were Self Insert, Reincarnation and Endbringer.

Okay, not doing a Self Insertion, there were already plenty of those out there, and the same could be said to a lesser degree about the Reincarnations, though a few ideas did come to mind.

For a moment I consider doing a short fic about how I could be Bonesaw's godfather. I could simply purchase up as many of the 'I win' powers and write a fic where I turn up out of the blue, tell her that she'd been hanging out with a bad crowd and insist that she come with me so she could be a productive member of society. A few power applications to ensure that the rest of the Slaughterhouse Nine are in humiliating and helpless states, and I could probably talk Riley sane. Given that the main cause of her madness was fear of Jack tearing her life apart again once he was out of the way writing it wouldn't be too hard. If I was feeling really cheap I could just invent a 'makes people sane' power.

. . . Ohhh.

Ye gods, that would probably be the ultimate power in the Wormverse.

Actually, the PRT would probably count it as a Master power and forbid its use. Of course, Cauldron would have no trouble using it behind the scenes. Hmmm, that might make for another short fic.

But that wasn't what I was looking for here, what I wanted was at least the start of a proper fic, one that I could run with.

So no, Reincarnation has some appeal, but it wasn't what I want. So that leaves Endbringer.

Well, it is the most underused option. I think there had been one or two attempts to get one started, but they hadn't gotten too far yet. Still, the idea of writing a bad guy wasn't too appealing. Mind you . . .

I look over the description of the Endbringer route, and an idea starts to form in my mind. Yes, there's definitely something I can use here. Also being an Endbringer automatically grants a level of physical strength and durability even without the use of a power.

Moving my mouse I click on the Endbringer option. The screen changes and now I'm faced with the choice in difficulty level.

Well, my first impulse is to go with the World Breaker option, with that many points I could have loads of the perks and powers I wanted without having to take any complications and all the powers would start out twice as strong to boot.

Nope, too much overkill. As an Endbringer 'my' powers were already an order of magnitude higher than they would have been had I chosen another route, to double them on top of that . . . no, that was just too much. Boring!

Besides, it was kind of against my policy to play a game through on the easiest level, it made it kind of unsatisfying. This thing was set up like a game, so maybe there'd be a gaming aspect to how my choices went as I continued. I didn't want to get a message telling me that I'd made the wrong choice and Scion had killed me before I got anything done.

No, let's go with Standard mode, if it was fun I could always try doing it on an easier or harder mode later.

That gives me six points to work with, but I can get some more if I'm willing to take some complications.

Alright, I have an option as to what I want to do next. Since I'd chosen the Endbringer route I am ineligible for any of the Companions options. Well, apart from friends anyway, but I didn't feel like writing anyone else into this, so I won't go with that option. So that leaves me with Powers, Perks and Complication, and physical appearance. That last one is a bit of a surprise, considering that it wasn't part of the original Worm CYOA pages.

Giving in to curiosity I click on it. Immediately the screen switches to something that reminds me of the create-a-character part of games like DC Universe online, Mass Effect or Dragon Age. In the middle is a vaguely humanoid outline and around the sides are pictures of the other Endbringers. What surprises me is that the 'style' of the pictures is strongly reminiscent of DerTodesbote, a fan artist on Deviantart who'd done some awesome pics of Worm stuff in the past.

Nice.

I click on the Simurgh and immediately the black figure is replaced with a white woman sporting a great number of asymmetrical wings. Below the figure are a number of bars and options that appear to let me change colours, proportions and all manner of other details. I play with them a bit, switching the Endbringer's bird wings for bat ones, altering her colouration to black, then blue, then bubblegum pink, giving her a humorously disproportionate posterior and an exaggeratedly swollen head. Then I switch to Behemoth, Leviathan and Khonsu, toying with their appearances, even flipping their 'genders'. The slim and slightly attractive female version of the first Endbringer is actually slightly disturbing. Damn, whoever cooked this up really went all out, maybe there's some kind of a Worm video game being planned?

It's fun, but after a few minutes I settle down and start to ponder the real issue.

What do I want my Endbringer to look like?

Well, I have lots of options available, the various changes aren't limited to variation of the original six, I can also introduce new aspects such as extra limbs, non-human bodies or completely new features. For a moment I consider something like a dragon/centurion, an organic version of the Ultima Weapon from Final Fantasy 7, but in the end I decide against it. If I'm going to write this character I'd best keep to something more humanoid, easier to write that way.

In that case, let's use my two favourite Endbringers as the base, the Simurgh and Tohu.

The Simurgh had the whole 'angel' thing going for her, and for a moment I consider doing a male version, maybe in black so it would be a sort of yang to her yin. It has a certain appeal, but in the end I discard it. The same goes for an idea of a male bat winged version and something that, after much fiddling, ends up looking vaguely like Sephiroth's final form mated to a squid with a passion for chainsaws.

Alright, in that case let's give Tohu a go.

I've always found Tohu's trump ability to be interesting. Sure, the original three Endbringer's had possessed more character, but out of the three new ones Tohu had been the most broken with her ability to mimic any Parahuman, living or dead, perfectly. If I remember right during the final battle with Scion she took that to eleven by copying Eidolon with one head and Glaistig Uaine with another, which went on to summon up a spirit version of Eidolon. When looked at from that perspective the three headed Endbringer had been potentially even more powerful than her monstrous siblings.

Her form appears on the screen, looking pretty similar to the picture drawn by DerTodesbote, a figure that gave an impression of not quite having a skin, and that you were seeing just the corded muscles underneath. With a click I change the gender to male. Another couple of moves and clicks with my mouse and the skin colour changes to a dull white colour.

Hmmm, I'll make some more changes later, but first I'll get on with completing the other parts of this program. I'll add in details once I've decided on perks and powers.

Okay, let's get the Perks and complications out of the way first; once that's done I'll know how many points I'll have left to purchase powers.

Complications first, then Perks after I have all my points.

Let's see, as an Endbringer I'm rather limited in what I can choose, but the ones that are available could prove interesting plot points.

The big one is The Cycle Begins Anew, which yields ten points to work with, but leaves me with two new Entities to deal with. Nope, not touching that one, tripling the number of capes in the story and having to handle two more Entities would just be too much hassle to write.

Next is Golden Morning for as many as eight points . . . I don't think so, not going with that one either. The way I plan to write this is going to be over the course of several years, I don't want the golden idiot messing up that time table.

Hmmm, Destructive Impulse, can't take that either, not with what I've got planned. So that leaves Sibling Rivalry which will put my character directly at odds with the other Endbringers.

Perfect!

Okay, that's four points right there, and since it's already part of my plot it fits in just fine. I'll also take You Need Worthy Opponents for another two points bringing me up to a total of twelve. Granted, this means I'll have to cook up another Endbringer that's specifically designed to defeat my character, but that should be a pleasure in and of itself. Plus having a Nemesis will make things a bit less in favour of my new Endbringer.

Right, that gives me final number of points, twelve. Now let's move onto the Perks. I think I want to keep six points for powers, although that isn't set in stone, so let's say that I have six points to play with here.

First there are the Endbringer route specific Perks. Additional Core is a must, if Evangelion taught me anything it's that having only one of a vital organ is not a sensible path to take. It says they can be detached if needs be, so even if my character is destroyed there's a get out card right there. Right, I'll take one . . . no, make that two. Two additional cores for my Endbringer. That leaves me with four points.

Next is Alien Nature. Hmmm, I might use that for the Nemesis Endbringer, but making this character too alien would make him a pain to write, I think I'll give that one a miss.

So that leaves Unbound Form, which was of considerable interest. Having a form that wasn't static would give my character both an edge and a distinction from the other Endbringers, set him apart as different. Okay, one point to that.

That means I have three spare points left, but unlike the Complications I'm not limited in the Perks, so I've got more choices to work with.

First off I'm definitely taking Shattered Limits. For the most part I don't want my character to be a total curb stomp on everyone, but letting him increase his powers will put him in a better position to fight Scion at the end of the fic.

I briefly consider Blank, but discard it in the end. As an Endbringer my character will already be immune to most forms of thinker powers, even Scion's. Sure, Contessa could model him to a degree and Tattletale might be able to determine something by looking at him, but the Path to Victory couldn't defeat him and the various other Thinker powers would have similar problems. Blank would give him a Stranger that that makes this a bit more potent, but in the end it doesn't seem to be enough of a gain to make it worth the cost. Besides, having him tracked to a certain degree ties in to part of the plot I've got planned.

Invictus is definitely another. The other Endbringers were invulnerable to mental control by virtue of the fact that they didn't really have minds of their own, at least not in human terms. My character would be different though, which might leave him vulnerable to such influences. This Perk would cover that, as well as allow for some uncharacteristic behaviour, if I was going to be completely honest in my writing.

That left me with one spare point, if I didn't want to dip into the points I'd kept for powers. My remaining options were Inspiration, First Impressions, Bottled Superpowers, Cloak and Dagger, and Manpower.

Well, Cloak and Dagger is useless to my character, as an Endbringer he won't going to be engaging in contacts, links or intelligence networks. The same went for Manpower. The only possibility that I saw of using that is if my character set up a cult in his honour or something like that. Not really likely.

Bottled Superpowers has some potential; even if he couldn't use them himself my character could leave them in locations or see the correct people received them. Seeing to it that Danny Hebert got one for example, that would certainly create plenty of butterflies flapping their wings to make things interesting.

On the other hand it would be a pain and a half to write, probably lead to too many original characters messing up the plot. No, this Perk isn't really suitable for an Endbringer.

So that leaves Inspiration and First Impressions. Well, if I choose a power that allows my character to create minions then Inspiration could be of use. On the other hand, if the new Endbringer creates minions then he'll be keeping them under control with a hive mind, or something similar. If that's the case then morale doesn't really enter the equation due to it not existing in the first place.

First Impressions though, that's intriguing. If my character is going to be up against the other Endbringers then he'd certainly be making an impression on the world, making it a good one could be . . . interesting.

Alright, my choices are made, now onto the powers.

Three powers for three heads, there's a pleasing sort of symmetry to it, but the question is just which powers am I going to go with?

Well, first off which powers don't I want? Power Manipulation was a favourite amongst writers, so I'm definitely not going with that. I mean, I can see the appeal, being able to gain, impart or even steal any power you wanted is so broken that any sane person would take it given the choice. Still it doesn't seem right to give it to an Endbringer; After all, that is just a step or two short of flat out making them a new Entity and being done with it.

The same could be said of the Kaleidoscope, being able to access dimensional counterpart's powers and knowledge, fiddling with time and space at will, basically choosing how the universe operated in your general vicinity . . . well, it's pretty much an 'I win' button an order of magnitude greater than the Path to Victory. If you don't like the way the universe is going simply find a universe that is to your preference and then make it this universe. Again, it's a power that would be utterly awesome to have, but rather boring to write.

Inspired Inventor pretty much suffers from the same problem in that it allows you to make Tinker-tech to do **anything**. There are some challenges to be had in getting started, but once you have the resources you become a juggernaut that can't be stopped. Martial arts, politics, medicine, it doesn't matter what my character would put his mind to he'd soon dominate it. With an ability like that it's unlikely that being an Endbringer would do too much more than slow him down.

Right, those are the ones that I don't want to use, granted they are all awesome, but most of them are only a step or two short of simply handing my character a completed Infinity Gauntlet, good for a short fic, but not conducive to a prolonged one. So, what else do I have to work with?

Well, there're the three Triumvirate powers, they're certainly interesting. I'm pretty sure that an Endbringer turning up with vastly enhanced versions of the three most powerful hero Capes in the world would generate the sort of panic that would be quite fun to write. If I really wanted to I could probably set things up in such a way that they'd think my Endbringer was their fate in the future and he'd travelled to the past in order to change things.

I consider this possibility for a moment, and then shake my head.

No, the Legend power was one I could work with, but the other two were simply too broken. Alexandria was pretty much a Superman without any breaks. I mean 'You are completely and absolutely invulnerable and immune to harm'? If that is true then it didn't really matter what the opposition do. Hell, even if that's the only one I gave my character then he'd still be able to win every battle through simple attrition. There might not be too much of a planet left by the end of a fight with Scion, but he'd still win.

As for the Eidolon power, it's pretty much Power Manipulation with an autopilot for when you don't want to pay too much attention. The power itself selects the abilities you needed, in some cases even before you know you need them, making it something of an Empowered Path to Victory. In essence it suffers the same trouble, good for a short write, but not for a big one.

So that leaves me with four to choose from; Legend, Emperor of Man, Psychokinetic and Shaper.

Well, the one that I'll definitely be taking was the Shaper. Having spent many happy hours playing Prototype and Starcraft as Kerrigan it was the kind of power that would be loads of fun to play with. In an Endbringer it will have lots of potential, but lack the utterly overwhelming power that some of the other choices possess. Already any number of ideas bubble up in my mind, just waiting to be written.

Okay, one down two to go.

Next is Psychokinetic, again it's an ability with vast potential and many obvious applications, but just like the Shaper it lacked the immediate 'I win' quality that would make it boring to write. The ability to freely manipulate matter and energy by will alone would make for a nightmare on its own, especially when done at a level that an Endbringer could manage, add it to the Shaper and so many possibilities open up.

So that leaves one last power to purchase, but the question is, which it should be?

The Legend has a certain appeal, but at the same time it seems somewhat superfluous in the face of the Psychokinetic power. Certainly the ability to transform into living energy has an appeal, as well as the ability to recover from all injuries simply by switching to it and back, but it doesn't quite fit into the image I have in mind.

So that leaves Emperor of Man. In all truth I find myself slightly leery of this option. On the face of it it's not a bad choice since it provides not only physical, mental and psychic enhancements but also something akin to a Tinker only slightly below the Inspired Inventor ability. The problem is that it said 'psyker abilities are the equal of the Emperor's at his peak'. Well, I might not be the most enthusiastic of readers in the 40K universe, but even so I do know that at his height the Emperor of mankind had the kind of power that would let him scythe entire solar systems clean of life. Hell, if I remember right he managed to beat what was arguably the most powerful of the old star gods to a pulp and then bury its comatose carcass under the red soil of mars.

More than anything else it seems to be the kind of power that would be more suited to a great hero or conqueror, rather than an incarnation of alien hostility.

On the other hand, it does seem the more interesting option. To be sure many of the psyker benefits are already covered by Psychokinetic, and the knowledge to create Primarchs and Space Marines is already available with the Shaper. But even if you tak that into account there are still other aspects that should be taken into account, aspects that could be fun to use.

Yes, I can definitely work with this.

Alright, click, click, and click. All three powers were complete and the program is asking me if I am finished with my choices, well not quite yet. Switching back to the physical appearance of my Endbringer I begin to make a few changes.

First off there's the matter of size. Even the Simurgh, the smallest of all the Endbringers, had been fifteen feet tall. Just how big should my character be? Let's go with . . . twenty five feet tall, that should be about right. That's big enough to go up against the likes of Leviathan or Behemoth without being ridiculously oversized.

Alright, now for a few purely cosmetic changes. First is the skin, or lack thereof. The avatar on my screen retains the ropey, corded look that Tohu possesses. Now, I want to keep my character inhuman, but at the same time I want him to be distinct from the original form I've based him on.

Fiddling with the options available to me I try out a few different variations. The rock like skin is to close too Behemoth to be used, and the smooth porcelain skin seems too much a duplicate of the Simurgh. In the end I settle on a vaguely shell-like skin, one that fits close like armour but which has a nicely inhuman and unnatural look to it. The new armour covers the three conjoined torsos and all else below the three necks. In colour it's a dull grey with a slightly metallic tint to it. It doesn't look like something that's worn though, this, quite clearly, is skin.

And that leaves the final matter of concern, the three faces of my Endbringer.

Three heads for three powers, but if they were all the same it would be rather dull. Also it wasn't as though each face really did control a different power, but to make it appear so would be an interesting deception to perpetuate.

Right, first the left head, that would be the one to supposedly control the Shaper power. A few clicks change the face from the same dull grey as the insect armour to a light green with vivid crimson veins marking the temples and running down to the neck. The hair is now Kerrigan style tentacle dreadlocks, though somewhat shorter than the ones sported by the Queen of Blades, running down the neck and merging back into the flesh. As a final touch I set the eyes to emit a red glow that matches the veins that framed them. I pause for a moment and look at it.

It really does look like a slightly colour changed version of Sarah Kerrigan, still I suppose spending literally dozens of hours playing as her on Heart of the Swarm rubbed off on me.

You know what, why the hell not? I click another option and the left face switches from masculine to feminine. If I was going to have a face to represent the bio-manipulation power why shouldn't it be the Queen of the Swarm?

Next was the right head, the one I'd have 'control' the Psychokinetic power. I think about changing it to be distinctive and inhuman, maybe reptilian or insectile, but then I discard the idea. Making it animalistic would have been more suited to the left head, the Shaper was based on biological manipulation, and that tied into flesh which in turn tied to animals. What did the power of ultimate telekinesis associate with in my mind?

Well, the first thing that sprang to mind was Tetsuo from Akira. Nope, not quite what I want, though his out of control form could certain be inspiration for future Endbringers. Next was Jean Grey from the X-Men, but again not what I want. I want inhumanity, faceless forces that were as unstoppable as an oncoming storm.

Hmmm, faceless . . . that I can work with.

I remember the middle head from Tohu's original picture. That had been her mimicking Eidolon I think, blank mask, hood and glowing green eyes sounded about right. Alright, no copying that, but maybe something similar?

Once again I take a look at the list of options available, and once again I'm pleasantly surprised. Really someone sunk an ungodly amount of time and effort into making this program, there're more than two hundred choices for different masks, helmets and the like. I try a few options, such as a knight's helm, a carnival mask and something like a Spider-Man mask without the webs, but none of them really click for me. What I want is something sci-fi style rather than fantasy, yet at the same time something that doesn't look human, that doesn't have the obvious features of mouth and eyes.

Ah, this looks promising. The image before me is very close to the mask worn by Zero in Code Geass. The design isn't quite the same, and there's no gold wing design beneath the oval, indeed there's no oval. The whole mask is a single piece without indication of how the one wearing it would see out. Aside from that though it shares features such as the flared back spikes and the complete covering of the head.

All in all it's just what I want, no features, just a plain blank surface that's just close enough to human to be offsetting. Now, the only things I have to change are the colours. At the moment it was all a matt black, but I want something a bit different. Let's see, the left head was predominantly green and red for leafs and blood, what colour seemed appropriate for the mental control of pure force?

Void black with a dashing of pinprick stars? Glowing red, like an internally lit ruby? Radiant electric blue? No, those all seemed too overt, not really to my taste. What I want is something a bit more subtle, special effects like crackling energy or small orbiting orbs don't quite fit.

In irritation I turn back to the colour palette, just as with all the rest of this program it's surprisingly complete, all manner of shades and patterns are available to me for use.

Cyan perhaps? No, that's too close to the green of the left face; I need something different, something at the other end of the spec-

Ah, that should do just fine.

Honestly I'm surprised it's there, but with the options available I can set it up like . . . so.

The right hand head changes into a shade of blue, but it's an unusual shade that I'm actually quite fond of. If you look at it from the right angle it looks purple, or even slightly red. A single shade that can appear to be other colours, that strikes me as just right.

So that leaves me with the middle and final head, the one I'll associate with the Emperor of Man power. That shouldn't be too difficult though, I already have something of an idea as to what I want.

First I need a face, something similar to the stern features the Emperor of Mankind is depicted as having, but at the same time a little bit different. I cycle through the prepared options trying to find something that strikes my interest. No, not that one, nope, too pretty, too young, too old, too scarred, ah, I think I've got a winner.

If I had to choose someone the face I saw reminded me of I think that it would be Sanguinius, the winged Primarch. He had similar features to the Emperor, but they were slightly younger, less severe. The hair was about the same style, if a bit longer, only golden instead of black. Okay, just need a few more alterations.

First I leech the colour out of the face and hair until it's completely white. Not the alabaster white of the Simurgh though, this paleness is, for want of a better description, deader. Like comparing the white of chalk to the white of marble, yes that's a good comparison. Another click and the hair changes from white to black, the majority fusing into the shoulders and back, but some strands left moving free.

Yes, that was what I was looking for. Just like the Simurgh the effect was of something trying to be human, but not getting it quite right it was closer than the third Endbringer, but the blank skin, the colourless eyes, the impassive expression, it all adds up into something nicely alien.

Still, it needs an extra touch. Checking my options again I see that there's a selection of crowns, tiaras and other head worn jewellery.

Really, I'd played games by big companies which had invested god only knows how much money poured into them that weren't even half this good. Maybe it was someone's proof of concept or something like that. It went a ways to explaining the detail and flexibility. Oh well, I suppose I should be grateful that my computer could run it.

Anyway, back to my final touches. I scan down the options and find the one I'm looking for, a simple laurel wreath cast in gold, just like the one the Emperor is often depicted wearing. No, that doesn't go to well with the black and white of it wearer, the gold seemed lost and out of place. Another click and it's silver.

Much better.

Alright, that seems to be it. I briefly consider giving the middle head a halo or aura, but dismiss that as over the top. I have a few more ideas, but I think I can save them to later, the Unbound Form Perk means that if I want to write in any cosmetic, or even major, changes in my Endbringer's appearance later I have a perfect excuse for it.

So, click on design complete, and then click on character complete.

Oh, here's another message this one telling me about the victory conditions. The simple one is that I have to survive past the end of the story, meaning after Scion's death. I don't have to be directly responsible for it, but my involvement is hinted to be recommended. As an Endbringer my character can also win by slaying all other Endbringers or simply eliminating them as a threat. I read the rewards for that and feel a smile touch my lips.

A congratulatory brofist from Godzilla? If I get that far I might need to use the Shaper to scale up my character so that it's not so absurd, but it might be worth it simply to write that scene.

Huh, there's a bit at the bottom that I've never seen before. Must be an addition for this program version.

_**Once this program has been engaged it will not stop. You will have to play all the way through to an end before you can exit.**_

Guess that meant that once you got started it wasn't one of those games you could pause or save. That should be okay though, I've got lots of time today and if worst comes to worst I can always just turn off my computer.

Let's get started. With any luck this should give me the inspiration for something interesting.

Cli-


	2. Chapter 2

**The various fictional worlds, characters and elements that are written about in this fanfiction belong to their various creators, who I'm too lazy to list. This is purely a fan work and not intended to generate any sort of profit. I know that if it does a fair number of bloodthirsty lawyers are likely to make my life miserable. As always constructive criticism is welcome and flames will be ignored.**

**Well, here's the next part of the story. I've decided to keep the chapters short so that I can get them done faster that way. Though I think that the next one might be a bit of a ways off because writing this has served its purpose and my inspiration for my other works has returned. I think I'll go back to concentrating on GSBW again, then write the next chapter once I'm done with its latest chapter.**

**On another note I'd like to thank all those that sent me info on the Emperor of Mankind, your help has cleared up a few questions I had and will hopefully aid in future writing.**

**Lastly I'm taking suggestions as to just when in the timeline my character has been introduced. I already have a rough plan, but if you'd like to tell me what you think I'd be more than happy to give it due consideration.**

* * *

**Play it My Way: Chapter Two**

_**-ICK**_

The simple sound of me pressing the button on my mouse seems to reverberate around my small office. It doesn't sound like the tap of a mouse; this sounds more like a judge's hammer slamming down as it punctuates the sentencing of a man to life imprisonment.

I have just enough time to glance down at it in puzzlement before the sound fades as suddenly as it came.

Then the lights go out.

I don't mean that the bulb in my ceiling lamp fails. That's quite impossible given that it's a sunny day outside and I don't actually have it on. I don't mean that the cord on my blind somehow breaks and the window is covered. I don't even mean that a sudden and unexpected eclipse has blotted out the sun and I now find myself reading from the light of my computer screen.

I mean ALL . . . THE . . . LIGHTS . . . GO . . . **OUT!**

I have just enough time to feel my eyes widen in surprise as the pitch black envelopes me, then I'm falling. My chair is gone, the floor is gone, even the ground itself has disappeared, all that remains is the endless darkness and the sensation of falling, even though no wind whips around me.

And then . . . the darkness parts and I can see the universe about me. Stars in the distances, planets equally far off, comets, nebulas, clusters, all of them are spread out around me as though I could reach out and touch them, yet at the same time they remain infinity far away. I can see so much . . . and then it is eclipsed.

The two things are huge, even when seen from this strange perspective I'm in possession of I can tell that their sheer size is vast. They are beyond moons, beyond planets even, the only thing that seems to grant them scale is the sun to which they approach. They don't move like crude things of flesh and blood, in fact it doesn't seem as though movement is the right way to describe their method of propulsion. They insinuate themselves, growing in one direction even as they wither in another, but even that isn't a correct analysis because they remain in an unchanged state despite it.

It's impossible, like looking at one of those paintings of a staircase that leads up to itself, only multiplied into infinity and definitely not some mere illusion or trick of the eye.

And even as they move something is happening, these two huge beings shed parts of themselves. Fragments that have to be the size of cities, countries, even entire continents, yet they were nothing to the creatures that shed them, merely the equivalent of cast off flakes of skin.

I knew what this was. I knew it, but I just couldn't accept it. This . . . this had to be a hallucination! Yes, that was it, maybe the steak I cooked last night hadn't been as well cooked as I thought it had, or maybe the meat had been tainted somehow. Whatever the case might be clearly I had some sort of food poisoning and that, combined with far too much time reading fanfictions, was triggering some sort of delusional vision. Any minute now I was going to come back to myself and find that I'd have to make a dash for the bathroom to avoid being sick all over the carpet.

Any moment now.

. . . Any moment now . . .

. . . Now?

I still clutch onto the hope that that this is some sort of dream, even as my perspective changes and I find myself plummeting to the small blue and green planet beneath me.

* * *

-()-

* * *

I awaken into . . . darkness isn't the right word, all around me there are colours, flashes, streams. But none of them are seen, the knowledge of them, of what they represent, isn't conveyed through simple light. Comprehension arrives in my mind without the need for organs to interpret it. Energy is . . . it's so clear to me. The trace heat energy about me, the kinetic energy of motion, the ever present power of gravity from the world's embrace. It's all there, all so clear.

And there's more than just that! Life, it's all around me, below, above, all about me in all directions. Tiny, insignificant, and yet as soon as I'm aware of it I instantly know everything about it, its life cycle, its qualities, its age, its lifespan, everything.

I . . . I know that this should be too much, I know that my brain should be liquefying, breaking apart under the strain of assimilating so much information. But it's not; I'm fine despite the massive rush of awareness, in fact I-

I suddenly become aware of a change, of many changes. My thoughts, they don't seem to be centred in my head, my heart, I can't hear it, my breath, it's stopped. The feeling of blood flowing through your veins, the almost imperceptible gurgling and flexing of the digestive system, the constant ever so tiny headache that comes from the simple act of thinking. A thousand and one tiny signals and imperfections that tell you your body is performing the messy and intricate tasks that keep you alive.

They're all gone.

Oh god, this . . . this is really happening!

Even as I think that thought I feel as though I should be hyperventilating, as though I should be panicking and thrashing about. But despite my growing horror at the situation I don't feel out of control.

Okay, take this slowly. First off, where am I?

Immediately the strange and alien senses that have been feeding me information supply the answer. No light, there is heat nearby, the dull constant heat generated by volcanic activity. Matter surrounds me, matter in a fluid form, hydrogen, oxygen, traces of other elements and chemicals. Various organisms travel in the matter some the size of a pin head, others almost as large as me. From above I can feel the pressure of the tonnes of the fluid matter pressing down on me, so much weight, so much energy, but it is easily ignored.

The sea. It looks . . . well, not looks, I can't actually see anything. But anyway, I seem to be at the bottom of the sea, quite a ways down if the sheer pressure is anything to go by.

Alright, now I know where I am, the next question is what am I going to do about it?

Even as the question is framed in my mind the answer seems to rise up in response. It comes so easily it's frankly disturbing, like remembering the answer to a question I haven't heard in a long time, but which was successfully pounded into my head a long time ago. I know how to move myself, how to get out of here. It's so absurdly simple it shocks me that I never realized how to do it before.

All I have to do is generate energy like _so_, and then direct it like _this_. Once that's done all I have to do is-

Any further thoughts disappear as I take off as though I had been strapped to a launching space shuttle.

* * *

-()-

* * *

Had there been anyone watching a large empty stretch of the North Pacific ocean then they might have been witness to the sight of a large vaguely humanoid figure erupt from the ocean's depths with such force that the spray travelled for an appreciable chunk of a kilometre before coming down.

Of course, such a sight would have been secondary to the spectacle of watching the multi-armed form spiral in mid air, perform a somewhat wobbling and tilted loop, then come crashing down to the sea once more. Only to have their re-entry to the waves denied as a large section of water suddenly froze into an iceberg, half the figure's body caught in the ice while the free section flailed slightly.

This state of affair only lasted a second or two though. With a splintering crash the ice came apart and the figure was free.

* * *

-()-

* * *

Alright, perhaps that wasn't the best start to things.

Shaking the ice from my second right arm I turn to look at the world around me . . . only to freeze in realization of what I had just done.

My **second **right arm? Also for that matter I wasn't looking at anything. Sight, at least in the way that the sense had been to me only a few minutes ago, at least from my perspective, was gone. Yet I still remain aware of the world, I see the shapes and angles of it with greater precision than my eyes could ever have supplied.

Okay, calm down. You're a grown man, think rationally.

This is really happening, it might be bloody impossible, but it really is happening. Well, either that or I'm in such a deep state of delusion that it makes no difference. No, don't think like that, such thoughts are useless at this point. Accept reality as it is, once I'm on firmer footing I can start worrying about it being otherwise.

First, what the hell has happened to my senses? Answer; it said that Endbringers awakened to see the world through alien senses, ones that were determined by what powers I chose. In Worm Behemoth could only see the world in terms of energy, Leviathan could only perceive water and the Simurgh could see the past and future, but not the present.

The energy about me, the form and composition of the matter, that was obviously from the Psychokinetic power. Heat, electricity, gravitation, kinetic, even the vibrations of sound, I can tell each form of energy apart as easily as I could have seen the difference between primary colours when I had eyes. The thing is that I'm not _seeing_ them; I don't really think there's a name for what I'm doing. I know where each energy is, I know the . . . direction, for want of a better word, in which it's moving, I know how strong it is, it should be overwhelming, but it isn't.

The same goes for the new senses imparted upon me by the Shaper. Right now there's nothing near to me other than a few fish, other tiny ocean dwelling life forms and some bacteria carried by the air currents. Yet despite them being so insignificant I can sense their DNA, I know how it can be twisted, rewritten, fed with extra dimensional biomass until a fish the size of my human little finger can become a beast able to swallow the shark from Jaws without even needing to chew. Even the tiny spores and cells landing on my 'skin', just like Amy had been able to do in the original story, I know how to turn them into a disease designed to scythe down all life it encountered. So much, so much life everywhere.

And there's even more than that, more than just the physical. I can . . . see? Feel? Taste? There is no word for it, but I can perceive the idle thoughts of the men in a fishing boat that sailed through this spot months ago. I can't read them, as in I can't see what they were thinking, but the emotions and drives hang in the air despite the passage of time. One sailor had been hungry, another lightly entertaining himself with lustful thoughts; a third had been worrying about something, something that filled him with fear. There were other strands and streams of thoughts and emotions, but I pay them no heed.

This is real; I haven't got any choice but to accept it. Actually the in pour of alien senses is probably the best truth I could have. I don't think I could imagine something like this even if I was delusional. Hell, the amount of information flooding into my mind should have left me a drooling wreck as my grey matter burnt out trying to process it all.

This was real! Accept it and move on!

First things first, curse the heavens that I had to try to be smart and go for interesting powers. Screw interesting! I want Alexandria invincibility, I want Eidolon broken powers, I want the Kaleidoscope 'I win' option, I want unlimited Tinker bullshit!

Alright, that was cleansing. Now that that's out of the way let's get back to basics.

Just as with my senses my body no longer feels anything like what I've lived with my entire life. There aren't any muscles responding to nerve impulses, there isn't even any sensation of touch, not really. Yet at the same time I am in total control of my new body, as though I had been living in it all my life. Layer upon layer of exponentially dense matter, musculature totally different from a human, a circulatory system that makes no noise and serves no function other than appearance, a totally different centre of balance. My thinking is done by the hardest part of me, my core I can feel it resting in the thickest part of my body where the three torsos join. There are two other cores, one in the skull of my middle head and one behind where my navel would be if I was human again.

It doesn't matter, I can still move as easily as ever.

That makes sense, whoever has set this up clearly didn't want me fumbling around and trying to learn how to simply walk. The same seems to be true of my powers in that they are firmly under my control. I needn't fear setting the atmosphere on fire or unleashing a plague by accident it would seem.

Whoever put me here . . .

The email was addressed from R.O.B, obviously someone's idea of a joke. Random Omnipotent Being, how many times had that old plot device been used in the fics I'd read?

Well, I am here now, and I'm equipped with some serious power. I haven't even had a chance to fully test it out, and already I'm damned sure that if I wanted to I can split atoms and trigger a nuclear detonation with minimal difficulty. And then I can go on to do it again and again.

If I still had a head then I'd shake it, as things stand all that happens is that my main core shakes slightly where it can't be seen.

With an almost absent flex of my power the ice melts beneath me, several tonnes of ice returning to a liquid state in an instant. I remain floating above the ocean beneath me, my form suspended by my power.

So much power . . . the thought ripples through my mind as I contemplate what I have just done. The kind of power needed to shift water from solid to liquid so fast is considerable; probably enough to reduce a car to red glowing slag, but it came to me so easily. And beyond that I could feel more power behind it, like an eager dog straining on its leash and wanting to run free.

If said dog was the size of a mountain, and had just shifted a claw barely an inch.

God, it's like that with all the powers, I can feel them waiting, like oceans of water waiting behind some monumental dam. I must be careful, very careful in their use. It would be so easy for that power to run riot if I'm careless.

But I have these powers, and that means that I have an obligation to use them. The world of Worm had far too much screwed up in it that needs fixing. The question is; can I do anything to help?

Well, yes I can. I can blast the Slaughterhouse Nine into their component particles. I can bury Coil in the middle of a volcano. I can fight against the other Endbringers, hell; I'd have to since I'd chosen Sibling Rivalry. I could see about stopping Cauldron's more atrocious actions. I could rescue Taylor, expose Sophia. I could-

Gods, what am I thinking? I'm actually seriously considering the murder of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Alright, granted that for the most part they're either monsters that need killing or sadly utterly broken people that needed putting down, but actually killing them . . . ? The most violent thing I've ever done in my life was get pissed off and vicious during a fencing match, and even then I'd felt bad about the bruises I'd given my opponent. Now I'm genuinely considering the deaths of them and Coil?

Is this a side effect of Invictus? Or is it a result of my new body? I don't have brain cells of cerebral chemicals to do my thinking now, could that be altering my personality? For that matter could I still consider myself to be me given what had happened to me? Am I just a copy of myself that's been dumped into this body? Am I an Endbringer that thinks it's human rather than a human that has become an Endbringer?

The thought is an insidious one, and for an unknown amount of time my mind chases itself in circles. In the end though I come to a simple conclusion.

Do I think I'm me? Answer; yes I do. Well, for now that will have to do. Honestly, it doesn't really change things if I'm the genuine article or a duplicate, either way I'm still going to act as I see fit.

Right, existential crisis dealt with; at least for the time being, what's next?

Oh yes, I was trying to plan what I was going to do. Before I could plan anything like that though, the first thing I needed to find out was just **when **I was. The program hadn't asked me to specify at what point in the continuity I was going to be placed in, so that that left three options as far as I could see.

I could be inserted at some point purely at random, I could be placed at the 'start' of Worm, meaning just before Taylor goes out in costume for the first time, or I could be placed at a time of 'my' choosing. When I'd begun running the program a number of options had been running through my head as to when my character could appear. If whatever force had placed me in this world had used those idle thoughts as prompts then there were a further three spots I could be at.

The first is just before or after Riley is forced into Slaughterhouse Nine. If that is the case and I move swiftly enough then I might be able to save her before Jack's brainwashing really sets in. It would also put me just before Leviathan sank Newfoundland, meaning that I could see about saving Dragon's creator. Or, if I failed that, make sure that Saint never got hold of the Richter's last will and testament.

My second option was before Taylor's mother died. If I could save Annette Hebert then there was a good chance I could upset many of the dominos that end up making Taylor's life a misery.

The last option that I'd been considering was just before the Simurgh's attack on Madison. If that was the case then I could hopefully do something to save the Travellers from a lot of grief. Noelle in particular doesn't deserve what happens to her. And Trickster might be an asshole, but for all the boneheaded mistakes he made he'd been damned loyal to her all the way through to the end, and that meant that at the very least he didn't deserve to end up as one of Teacher's sock puppets.

I can start worrying about how I can make this damned world even worse by accident as soon as I know just when I am. Until then such thoughts are just a waste of energy.

Now that that's decided my next challenge is just how to find that information. I mean, it's hardly as though I can stroll into an internet café and use a computer.

Okay, the first logical step is getting to ground; it isn't as though I'm going to find much where I am. The problem with that is that I haven't a clue where I am; I can't feel the temperature or feel the climate. I know how much heat there is in the air and just how much moisture it carries, but that doesn't translate into something I can use. For all I know I could be in the middle of the Indian Ocean or a few miles off the coast of Mexico. I suppose I could just choose a direction and head towards it. The sun is over there and it looks to be setting, so that must mean that's the general west. If I head for it I'm bound to hit a landmass eventually.

And I'm sure that will work out just fine, it's not as though I have 'Endbringer' written all over me after all. If I did head off in some general direct then by the time I make land I'll most like have a small army awaiting me, one including the Triumvirate. Granted I can probably take them, but there's no point to doing that now, indeed it will probably generate no end of difficulties for the future.

I would have to be fast, that would be the key. Get there before any resistance could be mustered, get what I need and leave before anything can happen.

Actually . . . I don't even need to do that. All I need is a newspaper with a date I can read, and if my Psychokinetic power is a strong as I think that shouldn't be too hard at all. I can snag a discarded paper and bring it to me from miles away. At least in theory anyway.

Of course to do that I have to find an English speaking country first. The knowledge imparted by Emperor of Man might include an understanding of languages, but I'd rather leave finding that out until a less crucial point. A map would certainly be useful about n-

Ah.

Ahhhhh.

Of course there's a map I can use. I'm standing right above it after all.

With a flex of the same power that keeps me from falling into the sea I begin to rise, slowly at first, then with greater speed as I grow more comfortable with the use of my power. For a moment I consider raising my arms in the classic 'Superman flying' pose that I've seen so often in comics and films. Then I discard the idea, with this strangely inhuman form it would look more absurd than anything else. Instead I let my arms hang at my sides as the air pressure pushes them down.

The world spreads out beneath me, a massive carpet of energy, matter, life and thoughts. I can't see it, not as I once would have, but what I can perceive matches my memories. The difference between liquid and solid forms the familiar outlines of seas and continents.

Okay, now I have a general idea of where I am. Over that way was Japan and Asia, and off in the other direction was the west coast of North America. I continue to ascend higher and higher, even as I angle my flight so that I'm moving over the United States.

By now I must be in low earth orbit, hundreds of miles up and I feel neither the cold nor the void. To me the freezing lack of atmosphere is simply a lack of energy just as the lack of air is nothing more than a lack of molecules or tiny lives. If I wanted to I could remain up here indefinitely, just as the Simurgh does between her own attacks.

Brushing such wandering thoughts aside I turn my attentions to another matter, namely the constant flow or waves and streams of energy I can sense passing all around the world in a sort of endless current. So many of them that it should be an incomprehensible mess, yet despite it all I can see some sense to it.

Radio waves, transmissions, the lifeblood of the world wide information services. I can se them, and with some time I'm sure that I can work out just what information is being sent through them. Maybe later though, after I have some more practice with what I can do. The last thing I want is to accidentally mess up some transmission and end up being responsible for some vital message not getting where it's meant to be.

There's more though. I 'see' the individual minds even from this great distance. Even amidst the sea of matter, energy and genetic material of life the power of their thoughts stands out like stars in the night sky. It would be so easy to reach out to those minds, to take what I need, but even as the thought occurs to me I draw back.

I have instinctive ability in the use of my new powers, but as demonstrated by my first attempt as self propulsion it isn't perfect. If I try to simply draw out the knowledge I need the results could be a disaster. At best I might damage the mind of the one I try it on. At worst I could accidentally lobotomize a city. No, it's most sensible to do this by the inconvenient but mundane route.

I cease my rising and start to descend slowly. How close do I have to be to be able to sense something as simple as a newspaper?

Oh well, how hard could it be?


	3. Chapter 3

**The various fictional worlds, characters and elements that are written about in this fanfiction belong to their various creators, who I'm too lazy to list. This is purely a fan work and not intended to generate any sort of profit. I know that if it does a fair number of bloodthirsty lawyers are likely to make my life miserable. As always constructive criticism is welcome and flames will be ignored.**

**Well, here's the third chapter. It's a bit later than I'd planned due to my laptop getting a case of the sniffles. I'm still looking for a Beta to help with this fic, if you notice any mistakes then you can blame it on that. Speed reading is a wonderful skill to have, but since I know what is meant to be on my fic it means that I tend to skip over errors without noticing them. If anyone is interested then please PM me.**

**As for this chapter, I freely admit that it's a bit thin on the action, but a personal peeve of mine are fics where self insertion character immediately accept their situation and then bull ahead with whatever notion they might have. Please don't get me wrong, such stories can be a pleasure to read, it simply means that my suspension of disbelief takes a hit early on. Since this is meant to be a self insertion I'm doing my best to model the characters actions after what I think my own would be in such a situation, hence this chapter. Well, actually if I was in that situation I'd probably find somewhere to hide until the whole wretched mess was over, but that wouldn't make for quite such an enjoyable read, would it?**

**On another note I'm taking suggestions for what my Endbringer will be called. At the moment his tentative name is the Morrigan. Yes, I know that that was a goddess, but I like the sound of it and there'll be a funny story as to how he got stuck with it. Still, it's not set in stone, so any suggestions will be welcomed.**

* * *

**Play it My Way: Chapter Three **

How hard can it be? God, did I really think that? That's just asking for trouble.

As it turns out it can be very difficult, and even as I contemplate what to do I find myself thinking of even more complications.

First off is the simple problem of whether or not my presence has already been detected. If this was near the beginning of canon then Dragon would have a whole bunch of satellites, sensors and other tinker gear that would have detected my arrival in this reality as soon as I started doing anything major.

So far I'd frozen a chunk of the ocean into a decently sized iceberg, had melted it again and had now levitated into low Earth orbit, I might not be blasting towns and cities out of existence, but I'm pretty sure that anyone with Dragon's degree of competence would probably have picked up on me.

Alright, that meant I needed stealth, I needed to be sneaky.

The thought's enough to make me laugh, or it would be if I had lung, a throat and a mouth. As it stands all I can do is sort of . . . bobble slightly with my main core.

I mean, I'm currently more than twenty feet tall, have an extra pair of arms and two additional heads, that's the sort of thing that tends to draw attention. Even if I wasn't immediately identified as an Endbringer I would still be regarded as either a projection or a Case-53 of great size. Either way I'd end up drawing more attention than I wanted, and before I'd had a chance to plan to boot.

But . . . stealth was a possibility to me. After all, light was the main medium used to see by, and light was just another energy that I could play with. The same was true of pretty much everything else that could give me away, sound was just energy in the air, sensors and satellites could only spot me through the use of various forms of radar, radio waves and other things like that.

Alright, I think I can do this. It isn't a large scale use of the Psychokinetic power, more like a control based one. All around me I can see the energy moving, light, heat, radiation, things that I can't readily identify but which I instinctively can understand. I can see them passing around be, seeping into me, bouncing off me, scattering against me, all the myriad of ways that energy interacts with matter every second of every day.

Reaching out with my will I . . . curve it, guide it. Rather than interacting with me the various streams and waves of energy divert around me and then proceed on as though nothing had happened. It was an idea inspired by all the sci-fi shows I'd ever seen where invisibility was explained away as the 'bending' of light around an object. Right now I was doing just that, only I wasn't just doing it to light, I was doing it to everything.

It was incredible; I could keep track of it all, even though this was the sort of problem that would choke a supercomputer to death. All that energy was being flawlessly redirected and controlled to avoid interruptions or collisions.

Alright, now I had at least some sort of stealth ability. I wasn't too sure how well it would hold up against Thinkers specialized Tinkertech sensors, but for the time being it was the best that I could manage and so would have to do.

Okay, now I at least had a chance of being able to do this without setting off a panic, now the question was where to actually do it?

Dropping into some random town did have the advantage that I was unlikely to run into any major opposition should my cloaking be breeched. On the other hand if I went somewhere of greater significance, like Washington or New York, then I might be able to gather more information. I could probably also get a look at some parahumans, if my Shaper senses had the range and accuracy I thought they had. Them maybe-

No! That was greed talking there. I had to play this smart, at least for the time being. I'll aim for somewhere small, all I need is a date for the time being, I can worry about other opportunities later.

I slowly descend, being careful to maintain the cocoon of flowing energy that renders me invisible. I lower myself at a careful rate and do my best to avoid clouds. After all there's hardly any point in what I'm doing if I leave a vapour trail behind me or punch a hole in some clouds.

Alright, I don't know too much about American geography, but I'm pretty sure that New York is right about . . . there. Not a good place to go to, and Washington is somewhere south of it I think. In that case I'll go somewhere further north. Not a major city, as small town would be ideal.

Nope, too big.

Again, too big.

Still, too big.

Blast it; do Americans only know how to build bloody cities? Haven't any of them ever heard of the concept of towns? Alright, maybe I'm being a bit unreasonable, but it's still irritating that I can only find cities from up here.

Fine then, that one there will have to do. It's still a city, but it seems smaller than some of the others, though I admit that even with my new senses at this distance I'm not too much of a judge as to just what size it really is.

Damn it, this isn't how it is for the others that have played Worm CYOA, all of them could perfectly control their powers right off the bat. Well, most of them anyway. And they certainly didn't have this whole issue with getting new senses that were bloody hard to make into a coherent picture. If I ever found that R.O.B. that stuck me here I'm going to kick them in the nuts.

. . . On the other hand, given that they can apparently twist reality like cheap play dough; maybe it would be a good idea to thank them politely and then run away. Terribly fast.

Okay, enough of that. I'm about two hundred metres or so from ground level and hovering over some sort of shopping district. There's a mall over there, or at least it think it's a mall anyway. So somewhere near here there should be . . .

Ah.

Some things are utterly universal, namely that wherever there is somewhere where commercialism thrives there will also be a corner shop selling snack, drinks and newspapers. And wherever there is such a place there will always be a nearby rubbish bin with a discarded newspaper in it.

One telekinetic pull later it was in my hand and as invisible as the rest of me. I pause for a moment, the simple act of holding it reminding me of just how much I had grown. The newspaper is held by the fingers of my second right hand as though it were a very thin note book, one of those small one at that.

Well, time to get the details I need. Carefully focusing upon the front page I try to read it.

Such a simple thing, but now it poses something of a challenge. I can sense the ink on the paper; tell the different molecular composition of the print from the paper it's printed upon. I can even 'see' the difference in the light that being reflected offs the page, where the black ink is absorbing colour and the dirty white paper is reflecting it. The problem was lining up that perception so that I could actually understand it.

With the paper in hand I carefully ascend once more. Before long I'm just below the clouds and can turn my attention back to the newspaper.

Alright, I'm pretty sure I've got tit hr right way round and the right way up, so that's the front page. I can sense a large print at the top, so that's either the name of the paper or the headline. Narrowing my focus I try to recognize the shape of the first letter. In theory this should be easy, but it's like trying to determine the shape of a wooden carving from its taste. I was getting something, but it was the devils own task interpreting it.

It was . . . two blobs of dark with dots of reflected light in the middle. Two . . . circles? Was it an eight? No, the blobs weren't completely circular, one end was flattened, a line. So not the numeral eight, it was a capital 'B' instead.

So that was 'B', the next one was a similar sought of blob with some white in it, but below it were . . . two lines? One went down and the other, I focussed harder, yes, it went at an angle. So it was . . . an 'R'? Yes, that was it, a capital 'R'.

It was getting easier now as I grew more familiar with what I was doing. The next one was simply a large round blob with a white space in it, an 'O'. Then there's a single curved line that almost forms a circle, but which has a break in it, a 'C' I'm pretty sure. The next was all lines, and for a moment it was a bit hard to get a handle on, but after a bit of puzzling I realized it was a 'K'.

'B' 'R' 'O' 'C' 'K', it's all coming easier now as I get the hang of it. Letters form faster and the word is followed by another, and another.

Then I realize what I've just read.

**BROCKTON BAY DAILY**

Brockton Bay . . . I was in Brockton Bay?

I was in Brockton Bay?

I was in **Brockton Bay**!

All the alarms in my mind go off at once as I try to think of just how this can go wrong. Frantically I try to find the date, but my distress has disrupted my focus and I can't make the lines and curves make sense.

Damn it! I needed to know, NOW! I metaphorically glare down at the page as though I can wring the information I need form through sheer willpower.

As it turns out, that wasn't a good idea, not when I really can force the world to accede to my wishes.

As narrowed my attention onto the numbers that refuse to make sense I became aware of a point of heat blossoming from the place I was focussing my attention. The processed plant matter that made up the paper underwent chemical reactions as the temperature rose and-

If I were capable of speaking I would have been cursing up quite the blue streak as I telekinetically ripped the front page off the newspaper before the rest of it could catch fire. As the burning page drifted away in the wind I tried to take a hold of myself and let go of the urgency and impatience that was gnawing at me.

Okay, take it easy. The next page is a bit soot marked, judging from the remnants of burnt paper I can feel on it, but it's otherwise unmarred. Now I can make out the newspaper's name at the top, 'Brockton Bay News' is up there in the top corner along with some more curves and lines that I'm guessing are the date.

The first digit is easy, it's a circular blob with some white in the middle, very much like an 'O', so that must be a zero. The next one is harder though, a sort of curve that seems to feed into itself . . .

0 . . . and a 6?

06 dot and then a straight vertical line.

06.1 . . . 7.

06.17.20 . . . 05?

Was I reading that right? What kind of month was 17? Oh, hang on a mo', in America when you wrote the date you put the month before the day. So that meant the date was the seventeenth of June . . . in **2005**?!

Bloody hellfire, the main story didn't start until April 2011. I'd arrived more than five years ahead of Taylor becoming Skitter. Right now the future warlord queen of Brockton Bay was nine or ten years old and still pretending to be Alexandria by running around with a bed sheet tied round her neck as a cape.

Right, don't panic, that was the important part. Okay, deep breaths . . . oh, right, I didn't breath anymore, was that a reason to panic? No, calm, that's what I need, calm and rational.

Calm . . .

. . .

. . . Am I calm?

Yes, alright, I'm back on track. I wonder if it's Invictus that's letting me keep ahold of myself so well. I mean, I can say without boasting that I'm a pretty together guy, one of those types that doesn't get flustered or stressed too easily. That said what I was going through right now would have been enough to give even the most easy going fellow in the world a nervous breakdown. The fact that I wasn't at the bottom of the sea curled up into a tight little ball of denial and panic was a good indicator that there was at least **something **going on in my upstairs wiring.

Actually that made a certain level of sense. Whatever R.O.B. had turned me into an inhuman creature and given me the kind of power needed to bring nations to their knees had also given me the ability to control and handle those powers. It made sense that they'd also give me something like the 'Gamer's Mind' to ensure that I could actually function after what had happened to me. after all, a fic is hardly too much fun to read if all the main character does is metaphorically hide in a corner and suck his thumb.

Okay, enough introspection. I knew the date, now . . . how did that help me?

Well, while I hadn't memorized the entire thing I had spent some time going over the Worm timeline in preparation for a fic I might write. Now if I could just remember what I'd read I could . . .

Like a shoot rising from soil the memory of my computer screen with the timeline on it rose up in my mind. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than it had been when I was my old self.

Useful.

Now, let's see. 2005 was a year I remembered as significant. It was the year that Riley was 'recruited' into the Slaughterhouse Nine by Jack as well as the year that Leviathan sunk Newfoundland. That had been . . . just over a month ago, so that meant Dragon would soon be making her debut as a hero, if she hadn't already.

Was there anything else that happened this year? Uuuhh, I think Legend marries his boyfriend. Sweet, but not something that's too relevant to the 'plot', at least not in a big way. There was something else though, something important . . .

AH HA! Now I remembered. After 2005 the activities of the Endbringers hadn't been as clearly documented as they had been before, but there had been one thing that had been clearly stated. During 2005 the Simurgh had killed the wife and daughters of Alan . . . whatshisname, Sphere, the fellow that ends up going completely nuts and remaking himself into Mannequin.

Alright, I now know **when **I am, that just leaves me with the question of what I'm going to do now that I know it.

Well, the first and most obvious option it to fight the other Endbringers, that is kind of what I'll have to do anyway; the Sibling Rivalry complication guarantees it. The question is, do I want to?

The Endbringers are something I can fight. If the descriptions of the powers I've received are anything to go by then I'm stronger than any of them, but that doesn't ensure my victory. The full limit of their power was never really touched upon except for right at the end when they helped against Scion, and even then it's a bit hard to get a proper handle on what they could do given that he could essentially no-sell even them.

Leviathan and Behemoth were dangerous, among the few beings in the world that could defeat of even seriously wound me if I was careless, but I'm pretty sure I could take either of them on if I had to. The Simurgh though, she was the game changer. Her ridiculously strong telekinesis and her ability to tap into Tinkers in order to build whatever she needed was bad enough, but when you combined it with her postcognition and prescience made her a nightmare to fight under the best of times. Being an Endbringer made me a blank spot to many oracles and Thinkers, but I was pretty sure that the Ziz wouldn't be so blinkered, given that she wasn't a Shard.

Damn it, why hadn't I taken Blank, that would be making my life so much easier right now!

Wait, I might be able to counter her using Emperor of Man. I'm pretty sure there are a number of psyker techniques that could occlude one from scryers and oracles, if I could use those . . .

The problem was that if I did fight them they'd be going at it full boar, and if they did then even if I won the fallout would be catastrophic at best. And of course there was the other side of it. If I managed to destroy one of them then if things went the canon way it would only give rise to three more threats of equal power. If I kept on killing them, and I worked on the assumption that every time I killed one three more would emerge, then by the time I'd killed six of them all the remaining fourteen of the original twenty would be active.

Bloody hell, even if I did my best I think human civilization would be torn to shreds before I could put them all down. Not to mention how many millions or even billions would die into the bargain.

So no, actually destroying the Endbringers would do more damage than good. Hell, if you looked at it from a certain perspective the Endbringers were almost as much a blessing as they were a curse. They might cause enormous damage and innumerable deaths, but their presence kept the balance of the parahumans from going too far out of control. As long as they were about and a threat to everyone all the villains, except for crazies like the Slaughterhouse Nine, would only push things so far. If you took them out of the equation then the hopelessly outnumbered heroes would find themselves up against loads of less ethical parahumans that no longer had so much of a reason to follow the unwritten rules.

Alright, that meant that simply charging the other Endbringers full tilt was not an acceptable option. And that wasn't even counting the existence of my Nemesis Endbringer.

Damn it.

Alright, what could I do?

My first idea is to drop straight back into Brockton Bay, find Taylor and play guardian angel to her. Granted that would lead to some complications, but I'm pretty sure that with the powers of Emperor of Man I could force her through a Trigger event, then erase the trauma from her memories so it wouldn't effect her. Presto, one young Skitter without all the emotional baggage ready and able to take up a heroic role . . .

And then I'd have a couple hundred other butterfly effects, not to mention that if I was hanging out at the Bay then it would become a prime target for the other Endbringers if they follow through on the Sibling Rivalry complication.

My next idea is to simply get in contact with Dragon and ask her to help. Even though she was an A.I. creation of a slightly unstable Tinker she was still probably the sanest and most well intentioned person in the Wormverse. Hell, if I took Saint out of the equation-

If I took Saint out of the equation then she'd never experience her Trigger event and would be far more limited in what she could do. I suppose I could wait until afterwards . . . and then I'd end up making Dragon a target for everyone that thought she could control an Endbringer. I could just see Cauldron sending Contessa to take control of her. And even if that didn't happen there were the other Endbringers to think about. If I allied myself too closely with anyone the Simurgh might well end up paying them a personal visit. The notion of Dragon unleashed and mind fucked by the giant winged troll was frankly horrifying.

Alright then, for the time being at least gaining allies didn't seem to be on the cards. Maybe I could work on it later, but for the time being it wasn't something I could safely do.

That meant I was on my own.

Of course, I didn't _have _to be. Between Shaper and the knowledge I could feel swimming around in my mind thanks to the Emperor of Man it wouldn't be at all difficult to create a totally loyal army superhuman Ultramarines. Hell, why stop with Ultramarines? With Shaper and Emperor of Man I can create all kinds of things, recreate the Zerg with a Tyrannid enhancement, entire bio-cities, even constructing false kaiju wasn't beyond my means at this point.

No, it's a beguiling idea, but I can't afford to take such drastic steps right off the bat. If I do then First Impressions perk or no they'll declare me the unholy spawn of Nilbog and the Simurgh and launch every nuke in the world at wherever I'm working, most likely immediately followed by an attack by every cape will into volunteer as well as a few that'll be press ganged into the whole mess.

I have to take this carefully; I need to get my priorities completely in order.

Okay, what is it that I **need**?

Well, the basics of food, water and shelter don't really apply to me anymore. Companionship of some sort would be nice in the future, but I think it'll be a while before I have to start worrying about loneliness eating away at my sanity. At this point the notion of me needing wealth was laughable in its absurdity.

No, the thing hat I needed most right now was _practice_.

The powers I had were enormous, but the control I had over them was suspect at best. What I really needed was a chance to practice them on a scale appropriate to their potential, but at the same time it had to be done somewhere where a mistake of a loss of concentration wouldn't immediately result in a huge loss of life.

And there was the matter of first appearances. I was an Endbringer, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to hide that fact. The nature of my powers was a pretty good give away, but the 'blank spot' I occupied in regards to Thinkers was the real damning ability. As far as I know the only other beings that share such qualities are Eidolon and Scion, and since I'm obviously not human, even vaguely so, that mean I'd straight away be pegged as an Endbringer.

And since I didn't want to fight off hordes of misguided but well intentioned capes I was going to have to do something to counter my bad PR. I had to do something big and unmistakably benign on my first appearance to cement in the minds of the world that I wasn't the same as the other Endbringers.

The problem was that to do that I needed practice, and to get the practice I had to ensure I wasn't going to be attacked the instant I appeared. It was a problem without a solution, that's what it was.

No! I couldn't think like that, there had to be some way out of it. Every problem has to have a solution, that's a basic law of the universe. Granted sometimes the solutions only lead to more problems of their own, but even so those problems can be dealt with in turn.

I could destroy the Slaughterhouse Nine, that would certainly earn me some good PR. the problem would be finding them and then dealing with them once I did, I'm pretty sure I can take them all, but the Siberian is one of the few cape powers that's actually a threat to me and I don't know if Bonesaw has started seeding plagues to go off if anything happens to her or Jack yet. Then there's the fact that Jack himself is damnably slippery and might well be able to manipulate the local parahumans of wherever he is into attacking me while he makes a run for it.

All of that is stuff I'm pretty sure I can handle, but not until I have a better grasp on my own powers. As things stand I might use a power on the Siberian and accidentally trigger a small atomic explosion. Granted, it's unlikely, but it is a possibility. Then there's the chance of Bonesaw getting hold of something I create with the Shaper and twisting it to her own ends, that could go so bad so fast that it wouldn't even start as a B class threat, it would begin at A class and only get worse from there.

The simple fact was that until I could get some practice to get the hang of my powers I was best served by steering clear of any major conflict.

I know that in most Worm CYOA stories the main character establishes the reputation by curb stomping some big name, usually poor Lung, but as an Endbringer I already had an established reputation, that was the problem.

What I needed was to completely subvert the Endbringer reputation for mass destruction. I needed to do something creative, but at the same time something that couldn't be misconstrued as anything other than benign. The question was 'what' though.

Maybe I could bring life to the great wastes of Africa and Asia? That wouldn't be too hard, all I'd need to do is alter some existing plant life to thrive in the conditions and then build up some life forms to form the basis of a new eco-system. Once life was established other creatures would come and fill the necessary niches of predators and grazers. The weather conditions might remain a problem, but I'm pretty sure I could work around that with the Shaper to create plants that gathered and processed the natural moisture in the air.

The only problem was that once I get started someone's bound to say something like; 'Ahhh, the new Endbringer is doing something! Quick, drop every nuke we've got on it before it can finish and kill us all! Never mind that what it's doing looks like a good thing, that's probably just a trick!'. Then it's boom boom out go the lights and I'm back to square one only now I've got an undeserved reputation as some sort of master planner on par with the Simurgh.

I need something eye-catching, something that will make people hesitate to push the metaphorical button of doom. It also has to be something that will capture the imagination of the general populous enough that they'll be willing to give me a chance despite what it is that I am.

. . . Ah.

Ahhh!

Yes, that would work. It had just the right note to it, revival, redemption and reputation all in one. It'll also be big enough to make the whole world sit up and pay attention as well as giving me ample opportunity to test out and practice with my new powers.

Letting the pages of the newspaper fall from my fingers I once more ascend up into the sky. At this time I didn't have to worry about tinkertech enhanced satellites, not yet anyway given that Dragon was only just starting out. Warping the lines of energy about myself is more than enough to keep me concealed.

Up and up I go, until the whole world is spread out beneath me like a huge map. I can't see it, not in the way I could when I was a human, but my practice with reading has yielded some results. I can feel the light being reflected of the world below me, and I can tell it apart enough that the differences form shapes in my mind, the familiar shapes of continents and countries. It'll take some practice, but in the end I think I'll be able to regain at least an approximation of my lost senses.

I dismiss such thoughts as a familiar shape forms from the welter of information flowing into my mind. There, that's my target. It's still quite a ways off, but the earth is turning beneath me, and as I isolate myself from its gravity I can feel the world unrolling as it passes.

My target is growing closer to me with every passing second, and that only speeds up as I use my power to fly towards it. Of course, it's still quite a distance away, but that will soon change.

Time to start playing this game that I find myself trapped in, but if I do have to play it then I intend to win.


	4. Chapter 4

**The various fictional worlds, characters and elements that are written about in this fanfiction belong to their various creators, who I'm too lazy to list. This is purely a fan work and not intended to generate any sort of profit. I know that if it does a fair number of bloodthirsty lawyers are likely to make my life miserable. As always constructive criticism is welcome and flames will be ignored.**

**Well, here's the latest chapter and my character making his debut in the Worm verse. As things stand the next chapter will probably be about how the world in general will react to what's happened in this chapter, so any suggestions would be most welcomed.**

**SPOILERS.**

**I decided to go for fixing Japan because it struck me as the sort of thing that I'd do if I were in that situation. Several people suggested that my character could try terraforming the moon, but when I though about what I would do I decided I'd start a bit closer to home before I undertook such an ambitious course of action.**

**Besides, fixing up Japan means a fresh source of Manga and Anime, and that's something I'd definitely be interested in even if I was a three story tall giant with nigh godly powers. I think I might write an Omake where my character cosplays just for a laugh.**

* * *

**Play it My Way: Chapter Four**

Anime is something I'm quite fond of. Its funny in a way, one of my earliest memories was watching an episode of Mazinger Z back when I was only two years old, that and Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends were the first cartoons I could remember seeing.

Later, when my family moved back to England, I lost touch with anime since there was so little of it to be had, it became just a distant and fond memory of a style of cartoons that I hadn't really had a name for. It hadn't been until a holiday to Mexico when I was thirteen years old that I realized that the giant robot that was one of my childhood heroes was actually part of a larger genre.

Ranma ½, Dragonball Z, Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo, my little trip introduced me to so many series that I found amusing and continued to follow when I returned to my home country. Actually, now that I think about it, if it hadn't been for anime I wouldn't currently be a twenty five foot tall inhuman engine of destruction. Since it had been following anime that had introduced me to the concept of fanfiction, and it had been fanfiction that had led me to the Worm CYOA, if I'd never gotten back into anime then I'd probably still be safe at home.

Well, whatever. The point is that anime links to some fairly significant memories in my life, enough that I would say it's somewhat important to me. As such it was hardly a surprise that I'd come to somewhat admire the culture that had given rise to such a well loved entertainment type. I'd made a few plans to take a holiday there, though it had been hampered by a lack of funds and my own rather abysmal attempts to learn Japanese. Japan was somewhere I liked.

It was . . . odd to perceive it as it was now.

When you looked at it on a computer screen the description of the Kyushu disaster didn't seem that bad, not when you went by cold unfeeling numbers. Nine and a half million victims in the initial attack, three million refuges homeless afterwards, a terrible loss, but not devastating when measured against the total one hundred and twenty seven million population of Japan.

However the description didn't convey the nuisances of the situation, the details. It was more than six years since Leviathan had attacked, and the once fertile agricultural areas were still barren from the devastation inflicted upon them and the salt water that had tainted the soil. Both of the nuclear power station on Kyushu itself had been broken open, and the radioactive contamination spread across much of the island. Further damage had been done to the two nearest nuclear stations on Honshu and Shikoku, and though they'd been able to avoid the kind of contamination their sister isle had suffered what had escaped had only made things worse. From my vantage point miles above the Psychokinetic power let me 'see' the ugly stain of radioactive material across the island as clear as a scar on a victims face.

The rest of the nation had survived, but I could guess what had happened. The loss of the island and so many upon it would have been a devastating blow to national morale. Then there would have been the sudden influx of destitute refugees which would have further taxed the reeling country. With foreign business falling off as people sought more stable suppliers the economy would already have been shaky, a fact that the in pour of destitute and penniless and thing would tank even faster. Throw in a few mad parahumans emerging in the aftermath, like Black Kaze, as a final blow and you could understand why the once prosperous nation had come to be regarded as a sinking ship.

Japan was by no means abandoned, but it was broken.

Time to see if I could do anything about it.

* * *

-()-

* * *

The eighteenth of June 2005 was a date that would be etched into history.

The first signs that anything out of the ordinary was happening came in the early morning, just after sunrise. The call, delivered to one of the few remaining settlements on the largely abandoned island, came from Iwashiro Eiichiro, and as such was largely ignored. The man in question was a somewhat deranged survivalist that had set up a camp on the southern coast of Kyushu where Shibushi Port had once been and somehow managed to survive despite the low levels of radiation, contaminated waters and barren lands. The generally accepted belief was that he was a low level parahuman, one that had triggered in the wake of the Kyushu Disaster.

Most people that knew of his existence regarded him as a sort of hermit. He lived out in the wastes and apparently owned an inordinate amount of weaponry ranging from hand guns to portable anti-aircraft missile launchers. Though technically illegal as long as he didn't cause any kind of disturbance or trouble the local authorities were more than happy to ignore him and focus on one of their plethora of other concerns.

The thing was that Eiichiro was absolutely convinced that the Endbringers would one day return to finish Kyushu off, and he was prepared to fight them when they did. Most others that spent any time with him got the impression that he was a resourceful, dedicated and sadly deluded man who's mind had been somewhat fractured by the terrible things he been forced to see and endure after Leviathan's attack. On several occasions he'd contacted them, utterly convinced that the Simurgh was drawing close. Later investigation had shown it had only been a flock of seagulls or the like.

As such when he called in shouting about a four armed giant descending from the sky and that the Endbringers had returned it was treated with less than total seriousness.

That was until the Tinker Tech radiation sensors that the settlement had, at considerable cost, been equipped with registered that the ambient radiation for the entire region was plummeting faster than a stone dropped out of an airplane.

That had immediately drawn some panicked reactions and hurried calls. Granted, the lowering of the radiation levels was by no means a bad thing, but for it to do so at such rapid speeds was clearly unnatural. When the earth had begun to rumble in a continuous but gentle shaking they had feared that Behemoth was somehow putting in an appearance. Perhaps draining the local radiation in order to fuel some devastating attack.

Then someone looked outside, and that idea went out of the window.

-()-

It took a bit of remembering, but I finally managed to recall where the two nuclear power plants on Kyushu had been. That was a little fact I'd looked up while thinking about writing a Godzilla crossover. Knowing where all the nuclear sites were had seemed like a good bit of research to start with, and I remember being struck by the facts that all the power plants were on the coast. Later I learned the practical reasons for it, but at the time all I could think was that it was oddly convenient for an ocean going kaiju.

That's why I started by heading towards the sight of the southern plant. I figured that that would be a major centre of contamination for the area and as god a place to start as any. It wasn't hard to spot, even with my unfamiliarity with my new senses. I must have been miles from shore when I got the first hints of radioactive contamination in the water beneath me.

It was strange, like seeing ink in water when I still had eyes. I could 'see' the energy and the material itself, even though the quantities involved were minute. The Psychokinetic power let me sense them with ease while the Shaper power told me of the effects they were having on the local marine life.

That wasn't pleasant, not in the least. As I drew closer and closer to land it got worse, all the life near to me was either dead, diseased or mutated. From fish to plankton to seaweed, all of seemed to have been tainted and harmed. It was . . . sickening to perceive. I'd of course read about the results of fallout and other nuclear disasters, but to be able to observe the results of it in such clear and intimate detail, that really brought it home.

That was where I started. Reaching out along the same senses that let me perceive the nuclear energy I tugged on it. It was bizarre, like moving a limb I didn't know I had, only the limb extended directly from my mind. And had a reach that extended as far as my perception did. And seemed to reach everywhere at once.

Manipulating the energy itself wasn't as easy as I'd hoped it would be. Back when I'd moved myself, the heat in the water or the light around me it hadn't been too difficult. That energy had been cleaner, more ready to be used. If I had to describe the radiation I would have said that it was like handling spaghetti covered in oil. It could be done, but it was hard to get a decent grip, and if I pushed too hard something would break. I wasn't too sure what would happen if I handled the energies too poorly, but given that one possibility was the detonation of an atomic explosion I decided to err on the side of caution.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I began to draw the energy to myself. It was hard at first, but as I managed to get a 'flow' going it became easier. Before too long I could see the radiation draining out of the local environment and converging on me. I confess, for a moment I was somewhat panicked, afraid of what the radioactive energy would do to me. But as it turned out I needn't have concerned myself.

By body soaked up the power like a sponge, drawing it in and storing it without any difficulty at all. I could feel a slight effort to it, but it reminded me of simply putting on some clothes. Even the lightest t-shirt has some weight to it, but when you wear it you don't really notice it. It was the same with this energy; it was drawn in and held by my core, not a trace of it able to escape, so my presence wouldn't be any danger to those about me.

As I moved forwards I drew more in, my range and reach seemingly growing with passing moment in a sort of loop. The more energy I gathered then the further I could reach, and the further I could reach the more I could gather. By the rime I reached the coast I was certain that the entire ocean within a hundred miles had been drained of any trace of radioactive material or activity.

My focus on the flow of energy slipped as something else drew my attention. As I flew over the remains of some sort of harbour city I felt . . . something, a small star blazing in a darkness I hadn't even notice.

It took me a moment of focus and study to realize what I was perceiving. Before, when I had unwittingly travelled to Brockton Bay in search of a newspaper I had kept a tight clamp on the abilities granted to me by the Emperor of Man power. I'd 'felt' the minds in the city beneath me, but I'd carefully avoided focusing on any of them, afraid that I'd do something to them by accident.

I wasn't the greatest 40K buff in the world. In all truth I had been more of a fan of the fanfiction than the original thing. It was a marvellous setting, filled with rich detail and expertly crafted characters, but the general mood had been a bit too grimdark for my taste. To be sure I was quite fond of the Ciaphas Cain books, but they were exception to the rule.

Still, that didn't mean that I was unaware of just how powerful the Emperor had been. He'd once forced the entirety of the Word Bearers, a legion of more than a hundred thousand genetically engineered super soldiers plus their demigod like Primarch, to kneel at his command. And that had only been one of his feats. I had no intention of accidentally burning out every mind in the eastern hemisphere by acting incautiously with that kind of power.

Now though it seemed to be responding better than it had before. When I'd first felt it, back when I initially gained consciousness, it had been like a star trapped in a bottle, a mass of power that strained for release. I'd been able to use the sensory aspects of it, but I hadn't dared try to use the actives abilities of the Emperor of Man for fear that I'd be unable to control it.

However no it wasn't . . . straining as much. I wasn't too sure, but it seemed that with the increased use of the Psychokinetic power the Emperor of Man was responding more smoothly. Could the powers be interlinked somehow? There'd been no mention of that in the set up, but I suppose that when you translated it to real life . . .

No, hang on a sec, there had been something about how no powers would interfere with each other. So if this wasn't interference then it was some sort of beneficial effect?

Extending my awareness as 'gently' as I could I focused on the tiny star blazing before me. I could feel anger there, lots of it. There was also sadness there, loss that ran deep. And hatred, lots and lots of hatred. I wasn't really reading his mind, but the hatred formed a shape, that was how strong it was, a roughly humanoid form with long limbs, broad shoulders and a long tail.

Leviathan.

Whoever this was they hated the second Endbringer with a passion that was almost incandescent in nature.

Any further contemplation was derailed as something hit me and exploded.

It was a strange experience to be sure. If noted the kinetic impact as the projectile impacted on the left most shoulder of my left torso. Then there was a bloom of heat, sound and more kinetic energy as the missile detonated. There was quite a bit of force there, enough energy in various forms to have demolished a small house, or so I estimated.

Whatever the case might have been it didn't do much more than inflict soot marks on the outermost layer of my 'skin'.

There was something else there too, an accompanying energy that I couldn't quite place. It was lending the weapons some extra punch, though not enough to do any significant damage. A suspicion forming in my mind I reach out towards the tiny star, but this time using the Shaper.

It was amazing really. Up until now I'd only used it on sea life. During my brief foray into Brockton Bay I'd been focused more on getting my newspaper, which had been done with only the Psychokinetic power. Consequently this was the first time that I'd used my bio-kinetic ability on a human. Everything just opened up to me, skeleton, nervous system, circulatory system, digestive system, everything right down to the DNA running about within the cellular level. I knew the man's gender, his age, how many fillings he had in his teeth, how many hairs he had on his head, how effected he was by living in amidst the radiation that had permeated the area. I could sense it all, how it was put together, how it interacted, how it could be changed at a mere whim.

And I could also see the two small growths on the brain that felt as though they were new.

Those were the Corona and the Gemma, the two points to which the Shards of Zion and Eden connected. I could see the way they were constructed, how they interacted with their host and how they patched into his neural network.

There was definitely something that I could work with there, but that was something that I'd devote my attention to later. For now I am more interested in the greater response that I'm getting from the Emperor of Man power.

I didn't push with it, even if it was responding so well I had no desire to rush into what could be a disaster. Instead I tried to bring the images that the parahuman's emotions were forming. It was something of a challenge, but with careful concentration I was able to bring it into focus.

The city, his home, he missed it. He missed his position, humble though it had been. He missed his old neighbourhood, his neighbours, the shops, all that had been familiar to him. The images of what he wanted were also tainted by loss and . . . something that I could only interpret as a sort of hopeless longing. He wanted it all back, but at the same time he knew that it was impossible. It was that loss and that knowledge of that loss that fuelled his anger.

Well, I had come here to do something about it.

The Emperor of Man hadn't simply given me psycher powers; it had also imparted vast amounts of knowledge and other skills. Logistics, psychological analysis, military training, everything I needed to create and run an empire if I so wished.

However the real prize, at least as far as I was concerned, was the scientific and technological knowledge. It just sat there in my . . . well; I couldn't say 'brain' because I no longer have a brain. Rather it was in my mind, even though my mind now centred in my core. It was huge I a way I don't think words could properly explain, after all how does one go about describing the accumulated knowledge of a fifty thousand year old civilization?

There was just so much there, weapons, medicine, terraforming, cybernetics, artificial intelligences, faster than light communications, everything the Empire of Man had ever cooked up plus a whole mess of things that they'd never even thought of. And it was all so easy to understand, there was no sense of being overwhelmed or being unable to access it. I could remember how to build a sun destroying warhead just as easily as I could how to tie up my shoelaces.

However right now that wasn't what I wanted. I was more interested in something a bit more mundane.

Architecture and sewage construction.

The parahuman was no longer attacking me, mostly due to me having passed him and moved out of range of any of his weapons faster than he could catch up than anything else, so without him distracting me I once more expanded my awareness to take in the entire general area.

The city about me was a ruin. Even with the ambient levels of radiation now having fallen to slightly lower than the rest of the world the place can't b described as anything other than utterly desolate. All about me there are crumbling buildings; many of the uncollapsed ones show signs of damage, and even the unmarred ones look as though they won't last much longer. The streets are choked with debris that has never been moved and many cracked and broken streets have become short lakes of stagnant water.

But at the same time I knew how the city should be. I knew where every brick, every slate, every wire, every piece of paving should have been, it was all right there in my head. Plans of how to build villages, towns, cities, all of them complete with infrastructure and supporting utilities. I could see it all so clearly in my minds eye, a city made to house hundreds of thousands at the least, and it all came together as easily as a house made of lego blocks would to a child.

Internally, largely because I still hadn't worked out how to change my facial features, I smiled.

Time to get to work.

* * *

-()-

* * *

Iwashiro Eiichiro snarled in rage as he dashed down the ruined path that had once been a busy main street. It had been more than five years since the tragedy wrought upon Japan by Leviathan. Slightly more than half a decade since he had Triggered and gained powers. And in all that time he had dreamed of this opportunity, the chance to take revenge upon the Endbringers that had torn his world away from him.

To be sure the one time teacher would have preferred to have vented his rage upon the one that had destroyed his home, but being able to slay one of its siblings would be almost as sweet.

To bad the monster in question wasn't co-operating.

Eiichiro was a 'grab bag' cape, meaning that he had a number of minor abilities that combined to give him considerable flexibility. In his case he had low level enhanced physical abilities, that let him survive in the irradiated ruins of his one time home, as well as a Shaker power that increased the effectiveness of any weapon he employed. With a normal handgun he could produce effects more in keeping with anti-tank weaponry, so he'd been sure with the portable anti-aircraft guns he'd gotten a hold of he'd be able to bring an Endbringer down.

As it turned out, that was about as far from the case as he could have been. The strange four armed giant that had levitated past him hadn't so much as paused for an instant. Indeed, it seemed not to have even noticed the missiles that had impacted upon it with enough force to crack open an armoured tank. Instead it had flown on, dismissing the former teacher's attempts at vengeance with casual ease.

He'd known this would happen; at least he had on an intellectual level. Endbringers could take on the entire Triumvirate and keep going. His own powers, while useful, weren't on the scale where he could destroy his hated foes. All of this his head knew, but his heart and his guts were somewhat less reasonable.

He'd hoped to at least hurt them, wound them, leave some sort of mark. Instead it hadn't even noticed his existence as far as he could tell.

So he'd run after it. He knew that he was being irrational; that he should be grateful it hadn't annihilated him as soon as he attacked, but his anger, his memories, would not allow for such an outcome to stand. He just wouldn't be able to live with himself if it did, not when his drive to get revenge had been all that kept him going these past years. Not when-

It was something as simple as taking a step that had interrupted his thoughts. After years spent navigating the ruined city the one time teacher had grown accustomed to travelling over uneven ground. If you were moving fast it was a constant necessity to adjust your balance and footing to avoid tripping or misstep.

He hadn't needed to do so for some time now.

The realization came as such a surprise that the red veil of anger faded from his eyes as he paused to see what was going on. The ground was smooth to walk on because the cracked ruin of the road had been replaced by smooth asphalt. For a moment he froze in place, staring at the sight that had once been so commonplace but which he hadn't seen in years.

No, it wasn't just that. All around him everything seemed to be rearranging and repairing itself. Old bricks, corroded by water and time, levitated into the air and returned to pristine condition before slotting into place on a repairing building. Wood that had broken and splintered returned to place as a road side bench reformed. Even old and dead trees flared back into crackling green life along the streets. All about him a devastated city rebuilt itself even as the three headed giant passed through it.

The one time teacher fell to his knees, so overwhelmed with emotion that he could nothing else. The city was not identical to his memories, some buildings were different and most of the shops were simply empty spots waiting to be filled, but even so . . .

He had his home back.

Iwashiro Eiichiro knelt on the newly restored asphalt and stared at the distancing form of what he'd thought to be an Endbringer.

* * *

-()-

* * *

That . . . was easier than I'd been expecting.

My original plan had been to drain the area of radiation and restore the full fertility of the land, maybe clear away rubble and set things up for a rebuilding effort. It was only once I really got going that I realized just how far I could take this. I wasn't quite sure how it was happening, maybe it was some strange combination of the Emperor of Man and the Psychokinetic power, but I could just instinctively grasp how the city fitted together. For something as simple as repairing a park bench to rebuilding a skyscraper or completely reconstructing the electricity and water mains, it all came so easily.

All the materials that he'd needed had been there, in one form or another anyway, all I'd needed to do was repair them where needed and just slot them back into place. Buildings had gone back together, the furniture within them had repaired, even complex machines like computers and microwave ovens had been easily put back together.

What really struck me had been how little I'd had to think about it. It hadn't been me doing a few thousand tasks at once; rather it had been him doing one huge task while my powers seemed to handle all the small stuff on pure automatic.

What had been even more gratifying was that as I did it I could feel my range extending. When I'd begun I'd been able to extend my powers about a kilometre in every direction, a huge amount to be sure, but even so it meant it would take me ages to cover the entire island. But as I kept working I could feel the reach growing, reaching out to cover more and more area. It wasn't a permanent growth, I could feel that instinctively, as soon as I completed the task I was working on my range would snap back to its previous limits. Still, it made things much easier for now.

As I move further inland and I can feel the radiation draining from the land I wish that I could move my face so I could smile. For the time being facial muscles weren't something this body had been equipped with, the features of my faces being as fixed and immovable as those of a statue. But in time I'd fix that, after all I did have an Unbound Form.

The question I had to ask myself was; what next?

* * *

-()-

* * *

For the world the eighteenth of June 2005 was a date that went down in the history books. It was a day when everything changed, when the paradigm that the planet had grown accustomed to shifted violently. For years the Endbringers had been regarded as living disasters, monsters that could be fought against but never truly overcome. Their relentless assault upon humanity was something that could be fought against, yet in the deep dark parts of the heart far too many thought that they could never be overcome. They would slowly grind down human civilization, through death, destruction and despair; there was simply no way it could be averted.

The eighteenth of June 2005 was the day a nation torn asunder was healed. The eighteenth of June 2005 was when hope was regained.

Too bad this wasn't a world upon which hope could thrive.


End file.
